Recall procedures (and whether they exist at all) vary considerably. There are lots of means of control available with elections -- the particular means implemented in particular places vary.
> But the way election themselves work suck too: by nature, elections will mostly select a narrow elite.
That is not true at all. Whether that is true depends both on the form of elections, the rules of eligibility for election, and what people are being elected to.
In a population of the same size, elections by STV in 5 member districts for a 2,000 member national legislature from which a government is formed by typical parliamentary-government rules are different than election of a strong President indirectly by elections of electors in multimember districts apportioned disproportionately to population by winner-take-all plurality who then elect the President by majority election where a failed majority goes to a different body to resolve coupled with election of a bicameral legislature by FPTP elections in single-member districts, where the house which has both legislative and quasi-executive functions isn't apportioned by population.
> which right now is mostly hereditary
Its clearly (and trivially) possible to avoid this in an electoral system itself (though, really, I don't think elections are the source of the problem, the problem is that the economic system favors hereditary wealth. And this has been generally true throughout all of history, even without elections, so blaming elections for it is way off point.)
> And when we vote, we can hardly judge the wannabe official on his discourse: many are lying to gain the favour of the people.
Its hardly as if discourse is the only thing available to judge by.
> If you get only one thing, get this: policy making shouldn't be in the hands of a few policy makers. The people should vote their own laws directly.
That still involves elections. And, more importantly, why do you think that people who can't successfully educate themselves sufficiently to elect good candidates every few years will do any better when they are called on to vote on every law?
And, even if the legislative function was in an assembly of the whole population this way, it wouldn't eliminate the need for executive and judicial officers, who still need to be selected somehow. Without elections, how do you propose we do that? Or do you imagine that the laws the people pass will magically implement and enforce themselves?
More importantly, I don't see how that does anything to address the problem of a hereditary elite exercising the most influence and power -- after all, in the present world, they do that through economic power and control of the means of communication; to the extent that there are hereditary electoral political dynasties, that's a symptom of the problem, not a root cause.
